April 27, 2006

90 Percent Metaphor

By | April 27, 2006

As elegiac as it is fierce, Ani DiFranco’s latest release bears witness: a tiny, heartbroken, polemical woman, a convalescent city, and a moment in American history so rife and so fragile, seven months after the towers fell and seven months after the president announced that “you are either with us, or you are with the terrorists.” DiFranco’s performance in April of 2002 at Carnegie Hall confronts the national situation – its spiritual one as much as its political – with all of the folk-singer’s notorious tenacity and unrestraint.

It offers an effaced analysis, tough and withstanding, remarkable -remarkable, yes, but regrettable – for its continuing relevance and its bittersweet revelation that the work the singer asked us in 2002 to do, “so now it’s your job/ and it’s my job/ to make it that way/ to make sure they didn’t die in vain,” four years later requires the same diligence.

The performance focuses itself on the final pre-encore tracks, two lengthy sister poems, “Serpentine,” which DiFranco released on the then-up-coming Evolve, and “Self-Evident.” On its way, though, DiFranco covers a lot of ground. She reaches back to older tunes like “Gratitude” and “Names and Dates and Times” in a project to “remember new old songs,” she tells the audience, so as not to “become a broken record, a fucking cliché of myself.”

These, set against the then-new songs, establish something of an Ani genealogy: she gives the audience snapshots of herself at 18, “sitting in Kennedy Airport with [her] little shaved head,” and she nods to her various incarnations since then, her Little Plastic Castle self with “Two Little Girls” and her Out of Range self, banging the title-track out as her encore and playing the last sequence hard enough to knock her guitar wrenchingly out of tune – a lovable DiFrancoian trope.

This history unfolds by way of poetry as much as by music, as DiFranco dedicates a third of the set to spoken word, punctuating and animating the set with quick, witty autobiographical sketches. “Not So Soft,” a poem released in 1994 to mark the singer’s “first occasion to be down in the financial district with its old configuration of buildings,” assumes a spookily prophetic quality. “I look up,” she says breathily, “It looks like the buildings are burning/ But it’s just the sun setting in the windows.” And then, in a near whisper: “The rhythmic clicking on and off of computers/ The pulse of the American machine…/ It draws death dancing out of little countries.”

But, as DiFranco reveals in her liner notes, these poems are just primers for the performance’s real purpose: to unveil the final two tower-like poems at its end. Indeed, the twin poems jut out, stealing twenty minutes of the seventy-minute show. She writes, “In this particular recording, I can hear my nervousness increase as I approach” the two poems, which, in the wake of the still-fresh tragedy, ask of her audience strength, incisiveness and mercy-and, as always, action. Indicting as the poems are, their aftertaste is restorative and not unlike two monuments erected where there once was just space.

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ByApril 28, 2006

To paraphrase a great athlete, for a runner, the marathon is the ultimate challenge.

For most people, it is sheer insanity.

Why would anyone in their right mind want to run a marathon? Why not undertake a cool extreme challenge, like glacier climbing or big-wave surfing? Surviving a hunting trip with Dick Cheney would surely bring the same sense of accomplishment.

After all, running alone is hardly a sport. It requires little discernible skill. Real athletes run to train for real sports, sports that sell TV contracts and feature bobblehead dolls. In training for a marathon, you run in order to, well, run.

Finishing a marathon is one of those entries you find on the “Things to do before you die” lists, nestled somewhere between joining the mile-high club and planting a tree. Marathons also conjure up Zen advertising slogans like Addidas’ “Impossible is Nothing.” Songs like “Born to Run” and “Running Down a Dream” paint romantic images of breaking away from society’s bonds in one glorious expression of self-determination.

As usual, pop culture gets it all wrong. In fact, the marathon is the most excruciating form of torture – one that even the most masochistic among us vehemently shun.

A marathon is a 26.2-mile battle against the human body. It tests the physical and mental limits of the best-trained athletes in the world. It can consume your life, alienate your friends and crush your family. And it will cause you great, great pain.

Jerome Drayton, the Wayne Gretzky of marathon running, once said, “To describe the agony of a marathon to someone who’s never run it is like trying to explain color to someone who was born blind.”

Last Sunday, the 26th annual London Marathon was held along the river Thames. We descended on the race – which curved along the river, over the Tower Bridge and past the Houses of Parliament – to find out exactly how crazy these people really were.

First, we were introduced to the mystique of the marathon. Perhaps it was just the omnipresent fog blanketing the city, but that morning there seemed to be a celestial, almost supernatural vibe surrounding the runners. With Big Ben looming in the background, the marathoners came forth through shadows and clouds like Dickensian villains.

Not long after, we came face to face with the unique corporatism of the marathon. In every direction, some wellness company or charitable organization peddled their cause to anyone who would listen. They enhanced their gimmicks with brightly colored posters and absurd animal costumes. A panda and an elephant, linked arm in arm, cornered us and coaxed out three pounds and twenty pence, allegedly for the “Children with Leukemia” foundation.

We then witnessed the ruthlessness of the race itself. Jade Goody – the star of the UK’s “Big Brother” – withdrew after the 18th mile. At the 20th mile, some of the runners collapsed from exhaustion. The naive smiles and looks of determination at mile six had been replaced by faces contorted in agony. With Buckingham Palace – and the finish – only a few miles ahead, Drayton’s ominous words seemed to seep into the haggard eyes of the marathoners.

What is truly unique about the marathon is the crowd. For every meter of the race, hundreds of onlookers squeezed next to the ropes to urge on the beleaguered runners. One woman held up a sign saying “James, surely these are grounds for divorce?” Other fans threw bacon bits at British celebrity chef Gordon Ramsey as he ran by (his time was 3:46:10). But overwhelmingly, the fans pushed the marathoners each step of the way.

People cheered for runners they didn’t know. When one female runner staggered with a cramp, two people from the crowd leapt to her aid and helped her back on the course. Any time a marathoner slowed, walked, or looked on the verge of demise, a rousing chorus of English accents implored them to continue.

As the Queen – who, along with Shakespeare, celebrated a birthday on the day of the race – watched the athletes cross the finish in front of the Victoria Memorial, one could not help but be inspired by the scene. With arms outstretched or raised high in the air, the finishers accepted glistening foil blankets and glasses of Lucozade. A runner with the Irish flag around his waist accepted a Guinness from his mate in the rest area. Friends, family, and strangers alike stopped to congratulate all of those who won, finished, or simply put a number on their chest.

For all of the inhuman pain suffered throughout, the marathon turned out to be one of the most inspirational demonstrations of humanity.

And there are only 190 days left until New York.

Kyle Sheahen is a Sun Senior Editor. The Ultimate Triphas appeared every other Friday this semester.
Archived article by Kyle Sheahen

ByApril 28, 2006

This weekend will be the last chance for the rowing teams to get ready for the postseason, with all three crews ending their regular-season schedules. The men’s heavyweight and lightweight crews will have three weeks to practice before they race for the EARC championships on May 21, while the women’s crew will race the week before at the EAWRCs.

The first order of business for all crews, however, is a solid finish to the regular season, with the men’s heavyweight squad traveling to Piscataway, N.J., to race Rutgers, and the lightweight and women’s crews headed north to the waters of Hanover, N.H., as both crews take on Dartmouth.

The men’s heavyweights hope to rebound after last weekend’s third-place finish at the Carnegie Cup, in which the Red finished 10 seconds behind first-place Princeton. This weekend Cornell hopes to right the ship against a Rutgers squad that is also hoping to redeem itself after the Scarlet Knights were swept by Harvard last weekend.

Meanwhile, the lightweight crew also hopes to avoid a losing streak before the postseason, as the Red lost out on the Geiger Cup to Columbia last week, with the first varsity boat losing by just two and a half seconds. The loss stirred things up a bit for the crew, as head coach Todd Kennett ’91 decided this week in practice to move two junior varsity racers into the top boat for the grudge match this weekend against Dartmouth.

Kennett added sophomores Preston O’Connell and Chris Bunnell to the first varsity boat because of what they could bring to the race.

“They bring a little different attitude to the boat, a good race attitude – not that the other [racers] don’t, but [O’Connell and Bunnell] are real attackers. Hopefully, it’ll rub off on the others,” Kennett said.

Kennett made this decision as a response to the performances he saw last weekend against Columbia, noting that his varsity boat seemed unable to take the lead even when his crew was seemingly doing everything right. He also happened to notice that his junior varsity crew solidly beat the Lions, leading him to inject some new energy into the top boat with the goal being to produce better results against Dartmouth in one of the most important races of the season.

Dartmouth is having an outstanding season so far, as the Green are currently ranked No. 3 in the country. Kennett noted that the yearly race with Dartmouth has always been the most competitive of the season, with the road crew winning each race over a six year span – a trend that ended last year when the Red defended its home waters.

The lightweight crew hopes to make it three in a row against Dartmouth this weekend, gathering some momentum as the crew heads into the EARC championships.

The women’s crew will also be making the trip north to take on Dartmouth in its final regular-season race. The Parents’ Cup will give the Red a chance its first victory for the top varsity boat.

The novice boats for the women’s squad have been a source of strength all season, and they hope to finish the campaign with a solid performance as a sign of what will come next year when they step onto the varsity boats.
Archived article by Tim PeroneSun Staff Writer